


snart

by krotenkonig



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 20,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krotenkonig/pseuds/krotenkonig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>davekat fic dump, none of these were really long enough to post on their own so i just compiled each drabble thingy as a separate chapter. warning that these are all pretty much unfinished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. halls mentho-lyptus cough suppressant  - 200 cherry drops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for emetophobia, dysphoria, and mentions of gore/amputation. dave's pov

when you throw up the first time you can hardly blame your stomach because you've managed to suck your way through your entire body weight in cough drops in the past 12 hours. The bile tastes sweet and halls-cough-suppressant-cherry flavored and you think about terezi for a split second before you double over the toilet again and hurgle out your insides.

your grip on the seat of the toilet tightens as you hear the heavy tread of footsteps that can only be karkat making their way out of your bed, shitty mattress groaning in its springs as he gets up, and across your room over to the bathroom door where he just stands there for a second, leaning on the doorframe, exhaustion weighing down his eyelids and midnight grog hanging around his head like a visible stupor. “what’s…” he says before you guess he smells the vomit or sees the pinkish mixture decorating the inside of the ceramic bowl or something and he blanches as he grabs a towel from the rack and squats down next to you, but not too close because pukes got a splash zone and this is fucking vomit sea world up in here.

"shit dave that’s not blood is it. please tell me that’s not blood." 

“nah just cherry flavored crap.”

the tension in his face lessens a bit as he hands you the towel. you wipe your face with weak and twitchy trembling hands before resting your cheek against the toilet seat. you snort a bit at the asscheek/face cheek parallel and karkat's eyes widen at the noise and he guides your head back over the toilet, muttering a string of curses under his breath. mistook laughing for wretching, typical karkat, couldn’t tell the difference between a hearty chortle and a -

you finish the thought with a feeling of defeat as puke burns up your esophagus and splatters into the toilet. it’s a lot more yellow than red now. pink lemonade, maybe. Fucking delicious.

at this point you’re basically wheezing and karkat grabs another towel, wetting it in the sink before wiping off your forehead and face from sweat and dabbing around the corners of your mouth last, picking up whatever chunks of puke were chilling on your lips and not paying rent . fucking freeloaders.

"i think im done," you say shakily, making a move to get up. karkat paps you firmly on the shoulder and frowns . 

"wait a minute. I’ve seen humans sick before and you always say you’re fine right before you projectile vomit your guts over whatever unfortunate soul was gullible enough to believe you."

“‘humans?’ pff. rose is different. she’s drunk to the nuts when she says shit like that. Don’t stereotype, vantas, it’s not nice. I’m good, seriously.”

"that’s the most ambiguous Fucking definition of 'good' i’ve ever heard. you’re sick and your judgement is impaired.”

"impaired judgement is a drunk thing, not a sick thing. you’re flunking this basic human health class with flying colo- co-" You choke out the last words with a wheeze as you literally rip out your throat with a cough. It burns even worse now that your throat is raw with the aftertaste of puke.

you hack and spit into the toilet. you close your eyes as they start watering and you make a pathetic moaning noise in an attempt to keep the next cough down because like fuck you’re gonna subject yourself to that again. karkat gets up and it looks like he’s gonna leave but instead he picks up your glass from the sink, dumps your toothbrush out of it, and fills it up at the tap.

"here," says karkat as he offers you the water and you take it wordlessly and nurse it with small sips. Gradually the scratchiness in your throat subsides.

Karkat reaches over to flush the toilet before sitting down next to you on the bathroom rug and rubbing your back. you finish off the water and nudge the empty glass back to him.

your chest hurts like hell and you tug at your binder through your baggy tshirt in an attempt to ease the feeling like your chest is going to implode. now is not a good time for this to happen. your dysphoria tends to come and go in waves, and on your good days you’re able to lie around sans binder or sports (you downright refuse to use the word “bra” . Sports _chest supporter_. There.) without thinking twice. But now is not a good day and you already feel sensitive to anything brushing your chest and you wince at the thought but fuck if you’re gonna die on everyone because you were too fucking stubborn to take off your goddamn binder. you’d just respawn or whatever but you’re not sure how you’d feel about yourself if you did.

"hey kat can you turn around for a sec." your voice comes out all raspy. his hand stills on your back.

"why would i-" he sees you picking at the bottom edge of your binder and spares you the pain of further interrogation. "oh. Yeah. Uh, I should probably find some more of those shitty chute relief tablets for you anyway." he sets the empty glass on the counter top as he leaves and shuts the bathroom door with a click.

you fumble off your shirt and hesitantly run your fingers under the hem of your binder and figure you’d best just get it over with as quick as possible. Rip it off like a shitty bandaid. you’re good at that. you are the fuckinh pro at bandaid ripping, it is you.

you realize you’re not a pro at all and in fact are downright horrible as you get it up halfway past your head and you get stuck, arms sticking out helplessly and meshy black lycra squishing against your face. you are the opposite of a pro. you struggle around for a minute trying to shimmy your way out of the binder but your arms are too weak and sore from sickness and the more you struggle the more it seems to get stuck. you try to use the door handle to catch onto part of your binder to help wedge it off but it just swings the door open and you quickly slam it shut again with your foot. you pace around on the rug before you hear karkat return with what you assume are cough drops. hopefully not cherry flavored, you’re not sure you can ever stomach medicinal cherry flavor again.

"hey karkat?" you say as loud as you dare your throat to handle.

"what?" his voice is muffled through the door.

"you ever seen 127 hours."

"127 hours of what?"

"it’s a movie."

"no. That’s a shitty name for a movie. Who goes to see a movie that’s 127 hours long."

"it’s not literally - forget it." you slump against the wall and drum your fingers over the sheet metal surface, clearing your throat loudly and trying not to concentrate on the headache that’s building behind your eyes.

"what about it?"

"it’s this guy who goes hiking and gets his arm trapped under a boulder and hacks it off. poignant and graphic. the critics raved."

"that’s disgusting."

"that’s hardcore."

there's a pause. “um. karkat.”

"Yeah."

"I might need some help." your face heats up as you’re hit full force with a wave of embarrassment. having to say it out loud made it worse.

"if you threw up again anywhere but the toilet I will mop it up with your own prone body."

you let out a huff of laughter. “No man I’m stuck.”

"What the fuck do you mean you’re stuck" karkat opens the bathroom door and you quickly turn your back to him so you don’t flash him with your disgusting . Fucking. shit, shit, shit, the banter was keeping your mind off it but now . you stare at the ablution trap -fuck, shower - through the head hole in your binder and try to duck your arms down in an attempt to hide yourself or something. you wheeze a little at the exertion and you fucking swear if you have another coughing fit in this position -

"you were serious about being stuck." He sounds a little surprised. "looks like we have no choice but to hack your arms off and make a 127 hour movie about it."

"slated to be this summers biggest blockbuster."

But for what it’s worth karkat doesn’t take a jab at you directly and you thank him silently for knowing that this shit was not up for grabs in the joke department.

"here, lift your arms up." You do so and he tugs the binder over your head, and you think he’s at least attempting to be gentle with it but it still yanks at your skin. A small laugh makes its way up the back of your throat and you giggle a bit because this whole situation is so fuckign ridiculous.

karkat sets your binder down on the sink and tosses your gross sweaty shirt back to you. you scramble into it as fast as you can manage; swing your arms a bit and crack your back as you turn to face karkat.

"Thanks." your voice is hoarser than a stable full of ponies.

"don’t mention it."

you brush your teeth as karkat walks out and shuffles around your room before returning with a fresh set of clothes . he leaves you to change.  
you’re a bit weak-kneed from everything and end up pseudo-waddling out of the bathroom, rubbing at your neck where the binder chafed you worst.  
there’s a pack of cough drops - not cherry flavored, praise troll jesus - sitting on the floor and you pick them up, unwrap one and pop it into your mouth, rolling it around with your tongue. some kind of weird herbal flavor. It numbs your throat almost instantly though and you ask yourself why the fuck you didn’t pick these instead of the cherry ones.

you do your best to ignore the forever foreign sensation of boobs as you slide into bed next to karkat. He’s sitting with his back to the wall, reading in the dark - no thanks to troll night vision or whatever. You curl up with your head on his lap and draw the sheets up around you. he strokes your hair with one hand and holds the paperback with the other, occasionally glancing down to look at you, as he begins reading out loud. you sacrifice your throat to point out how the author’s obviously writing themselves into a corner before Karkat shushes you and you dutifully hold your tongue for a whole of five minutes.


	2. deflower me in the palest fucking way possible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dysphoria cw, cw for mentions of self harm. dave's pov

"it’s fine," you say, putting more ice in your tone than you meant to and you feel bad but if that’s what it takes to get him to leave then so fucking be it.

“dave, you’re not fine, you’ve been holed up in your room for four days and haven’t talked to anyone-” you open your mouth to argue but he shuts you off -” no, I know you haven’t, your pesterchums been idle and rose has confided in me that you haven’t even spoken to her in a week. and you always talk to her.”

You bristle at the mention of rose. “so what if a dude just wants some alone time to himself? maybe i get tired of hanging around the same drama loving fucks for three years.”

“look, dave,” says karkat, squeezing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, “i understand where you’re coming from. I want to strangle half the people on this shitty flying rock maybe five times a day , you most of all, actually.”

you snort. “doing a great job here vantas im totally going to cry on your shoulder spilling all my dirty secrets as you deflower me in the palest fucking way possible after you hurl insults to my face. you’ve probably been fantasizing about this shit for years, huh. Wouldn’t put it past ya.”

"No, you idiot, at this point i couldn’t care less whose shoulder you fucking cry on. Me or Rose or kanaya or even the mayor or god willing, terezi, if she manages to get her shit together any time soon, which I highly doubt." his voice gets a little softer. " you can’t just sit with this shit rotting inside you because it will hurt you more the longer you keep it to yourself. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience."

"look man I said im fine," you say, glad for your shades because you think you can feel tears starting to well up.

"We both know that’s a piss poor lie," says karkat.

"im not lying," You say and your voice cracks at the end and you kick yourself mentally because that’s what you keep telling yourself you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine what will you do if you’re not actually fine? how the fuck will you cope because you’re not sure you can. You take a deep breath and shut down that train of thought.

"karkat, i can handle my own problems and i sure as fuck am not gonna burden someone else with this petty shit if they’ve already got a lot on their platter. like tz? There’s no way I’m doing that to her, I gotta be the one to listen to her problems and help the girl out, not the other way around."

"then forget talking to terezi about it, that was a bad idea on my part, okay?" karkat raises his arm a little and it looks like he’s going to try to hug you but he stops himself. "you still have a solid four people who love you and want to help you but they can’t fucking help you if you don’t tell them what the hell is wrong."

you want to retort with some kind of witty reply but you can’t because you’re biting down hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from crying. don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry and the more you think about not crying the stronger the weight behind your eyes gets and you hold your breath as the first tear escapes from the corner of your eye because you know if you breathe it’ll just come out as a disgusting confession of a sob. you pretend to readjust your glasses as you wipe the tear from your face. God knows karkat knows you’re not alright but if you can keep deceiving yourself just a little longer you’ll be alright maybe because you don’t want to indulge yourself in talking about it even though you want so badly for karkat to listen as you do actually cry on his shoulder and he deflowers you in the palest fucking way possible-

"This is fucking stupid," you say, your voice strained and hoarse as you turn on your heel and start walking back to your block. You forcefully wipe at your cheeks again, angry that you can’t stop crying and angry that you can’t deal with this asinine gender thing by yourself and angry that you’re making such a big deal out of it except it’s not a small deal by any means because you keep fantasizing about just lobbing off your fucking tits with a kitchen knife as you scratch at your chest until your skin is raw and pretend it didn’t happen as you step into the shower and let the lukewarm feeling of discomfort and itchiness wash over you until the water runs cold and you’re shivering with more shock than anything else and…

you sit down and lean against the wall of the hallway and let out the most pathetic fucking sob. you curl up your legs and press your mouth against the fabric of your pants as you try to stifle your crying. you hear karkats footsteps follow you over and he pauses for a second next to you before you feel a hand on your back. he crouches down beside you and you don’t even care any more you just sort of topple over onto him and squeeze your eyes shut and hide your face in his sweater as he puts one arm around you and brings a hand up to pat your face gently. he rocks you softly whispering a string of “shhhh”s into your ear as you cry it out. he’s saying something but you dont have enough energy to actually understand so you just listen to his voice and its sort of cathartic. you’re gross and there’s snot running out of your nose and when you calm down enough, your breathing getting more regular, you still don’t move because you’ll probably just be set off again by the sight of the damp splotches you left on karkats shirt.

karkat strokes your hair and presses a kiss to your forehead. he doesn’t say anything and you both sit there in silence, listening to you breathing through your mouth. the vent near you kicks in with a faint clicking and you listen to the whoosh of recycled air filtering in for a minute before it fades away into the rest of the background hum. The sound reminds you of a loud and echoey fridge. Feels like one too. You shiver.

karkat paps your face one last time. “Come on,” he says, disentangling himself from you as he stands up. “let’s get you back to your block before you freeze your ass to the ground out here.” He offers you a hand. you take it and lift yourself up shakily.

"I am the stridercicle, it is me. look upon my frozen body, ye mighty, and despair." your voice comes out rough and nasal.

your shivering gets worse as you walk with karkat to your block. he suggests wrapping your cape around yourself and you do but it doesn’t help. Halfway up the stairs to your room your teeth start chattering you suspect it’s not because you’re cold.

karkat follows you to your block and waits for you to open the door but your hands are stiff and you suddenly don’t feel like your own bed would be comforting at all. in fact you feel sort of sick at the thought.

"am I just gonna have to leave you out here until you decide you don’t want to die of hypothermia or…." says karkat.

you swallow dryly. “can we go to your place instead.”

"oh." karkat looks from you to the door back to you. "yeah. yeah we can do that."


	3. fruitsnack monsoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not actually davekat whoops  
> cw for mention of abusive relationship b/n dave and bro  
> dave's pov

it’s about 2 in the morning when you jolt awake from a nightmare only to hear the familiar creak and hiss of the meteor as a dream bubble begins to envelop it. you have just enough time to pull a shirt on before a thin sheen of blackness slides out of your wall and across the floor and for a brief second you feel the twisting sensation of your body being sucked in. it swallows you whole.

youre flung down onto plush carpet so shaggy and lumpy and brown with dirt it looks like a poodle had a mudbath before spreading itself out on the floor of the room. when your head stops spinning you look up and have to squint through the darkness before you make out a stack of cinderblocks and a bare mattress and hey wow this is your bedroom.

Fuck.

it’s been years.

you sit up and flick some crumbs off the carpet immediately in front of you. you feel so weird. when you'd imagined going back to your room, there was always this sense of safety to it but now that you’re actually here you feel like it could be anyone else’s room. God knows it’s familiar enough, but the sense of security it offered before you left for however long is just...gone.

oh, shit. what if bro’s here?

the thought makes you uneasy with nerves but also sends a painful pang of hope through you. you get up and wander around your apartment, bare feet not making a sound on the worn flooring.

you make your rounds twice , stopping to take a peek into bros room, but he’s not there. you’re not sure what exactly you’d do if he was. hug him? avoid him? break down into a mess or keep it the fuck together so you don’t disappoint him?

you shake yourself and head over to the kitchen. your feet make soft slapping noises on the cheap linoleum as you walk around, rifling through the cabinets for food. you find some fruit snacks and decide to settle on that. You open the package and pop a yellow one in your mouth before making your idle way back to your room.

You never really realized what your room smelled like before. Granted, on especially muggy days when you had neglected your laundry long enough there was the unmistakable stench of sweaty teenager, but you’d never noticed the underlying scent of dust and bedsheets and paper and something sweet and faintly metallic.

you trip over a cable on your way to your bed and you swear as you land chin-first on the mattress with a /hnphh/, teeth clicking together. you roll over and lie there, feet on the pillows and head at the foot of the bed, staring out your window at the murky sodium-lit city outside. It’s drizzling, and a smattering of droplets hits your window as a gust of wind buffets them. gonna be a fucking monsoon, hell yes. it never just rains in texas. it storms.

you reach the bottom of the package of fruit snacks as the sky breaks with a bang of thunder and the downpour begins in earnest.

a flash of lightning illuminates the buildings outside to a light, brilliant gray before the split seconds’s over and they return to stark black silhouettes. you’re beginning to sweat a little and you don’t think anyone’s bothered to turn the a/c on in here for ages. you get up, flinging yourself off the bed feet-first, and walk over to the window. you wrestle it open and are rewarded with cold air brushing over your overheated body as a crack of thunder peals across the sky, chasing the lightning that preceded it. The rustle of leaves from the trees on the street below gets mixed in with the patter of rain. a siren blares for a few seconds in the distance , probably downtown, before it stops abruptly and once again the heavy sound of rapid rainfall washes over your ears.

Its coming down in sheets now, and you lean over your desk to shove an arm out the window . A lukewarm spray hits your hand as the wind starts to pick up. you jump up on your desk, unfinished wood rough under your hands, and work the window all the way open despite its rusty protests. The draft slams your door shut and sends the loose leaf pile of sbahj comics fluttering down like a flock of half-assed pigeons that can’t be bothered to fly more than a few feet.

you scoot over so your legs are sticking outside the window and your bare feet rest on the cool metal of the grating right underneath it. a smattering of rain hits your shins and you wiggle your toes a bit. you spare a glance downwards- if you die in dream bubbles do you die in real life?- and watch as a lone car splashes through the fast growing puddles on the street below.

you squint your eyes as a sheet of rain blows off course and hits you in the face. using the nape of your shirt, you move to wipe off your face but end up stopping because the familiar wetness on your cheeks and forehead is giving you one hell of a flashback. past you would sit here in the window whenever there were storms, too. your legs were always a bit more banged up from strifes and you weren’t strong enough to push the window up the last foot of the way so you had to hunch over, but.

damn.

you feel a different warm wetness on your cheeks as you lean your head against the window frame. Damp hair tickles your ear and you reach up to run a hand over it, sniffing softly as you do. you shift your hand down to the base of your skull and scratch a bit at your scalp, a calming habit you picked up from karkat. You close your eyes as you work your thumb over the knots in your neck. Everything goes bright red as a flash of lightning illuminates the inside of your eyelids. You drop your hand and shake your head, sending a shower of fine droplets over you and the desk.

there’s a humming noise in the distance, faint at first beneath the sound of the crashing storm, but soon it gets so loud there’s only one thing it can mean and you stand up on the ledge of the grating as oily blackness boils up from the ground and there’s that same disorienting twisting sensation and-

you’re standing at the edge of your bed. Your real bed, on the meteor, not some dream life one. you sink back into it and press your palms to the dampness around your eyes, breathing slowly and evenly and feeling more alive and sad and grown up than you can ever remember.


	4. i'll fight a puppet, i'll fight my own ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short & shitty, just how i like it. lmao i admit at this point this thing is just a series of drawn-out headcanons

at some point terezi leaves one of her scalemates in the common room or s/t and its late at night and dave goes to get cereal and is pouring out the milk into the bowl when he sees something glinting behind the toaster and he freezes as images of lil cal flash through his mind . he sets the milk down really slowly and his hands are shaking as he moves over and stares at the scalemate and it stares back at him with lopsided button eyes and dave's whole body suddenly feels too light as his heart starts pounding in his chest

he refuses to take his eyes off the yellow plush dragon because what if the thing moves what if it moves how would he know. And hes scared it WILL move when he’s looking at it and he can swear the head twists a little bit and he swallows hard. dave moves forward and uncaptchalogues his sword, tentative footsteps, blood rushing in his ears, and quick as a whip he pounces and slashes the scalemate with caledscratch, knocking the toaster off the counter.

The toaster , a burnt piece of toast, and two halves of a scalemate fall to the patterned metallic floor with the sound like a satanic orchestra. dave steps forward and pins the head of the scalemate under his sword to make sure it cannot move. His palms are sweaty and not once did it cross his mind how unlikely it was for some scalemate to become self-animated. It was fight or flight, and flight would only mean the scalemate would follow him out of the kitchen and chase him down the hall and

"The hell is going on???" The light flicks on in the kitchen, and there’s karkat, squinting, dark bags under his eyes and a cross of concern and annoyance on his face. he just stares for a moment, takin in the scene of dave, whose shades are slipping down his face, puncturing this beheaded scalemate thru its textile cranium, and he’s just like "jesus christ what the fuck dave"

dave lets out a shaky breath he’d been holding like its a small high pitched scream and unhands the scalemate, kicking it to the far edge of the kitchen. “just a friendly mano a mano with my bud mr. citrus snuffles here.” 

"its fucking three in the morning how did it not cross your pan that MAYBE, just PERHAPS, there was a slight chance that LITERALLY EVERYONE ON THIS PIECE OF SHIT ROCK IS TRYING TO GET SOME SHUT-EYE," dave snorts and starts to calm down because karkat’s angry ranting is cathartic in some fucked up way and bears the most semblance to something real that he can latch on to to stop thinking about puppets. karkats grumbling obscenities under his breath as he shuffles over to pick up the toaster and he sets it back on the counter. 

" im not surprised, actually, with the amount of junkfood you shove into your mouth like some voracious starving grub. that shit’s rotting your thinkstem. of course you’d be the one to get up at some ungodly hour to pitch a fight with some inanimate - " theres a loud sound of dave slupring up soggy cereal in the background and karkts just like you know what fuck thsi and absconds . dave lobs the empty bowl into the sink and follows on karkats heels because no fucking way is he behing left alone in a room with the ghost of a scaltemate whose murder he was responsible for


	5. tethered orb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was originally going to be a multi chapter fic of its own but i honestly dont think i have it in me to write that much so its just going here. also i wrote most of this when i was really sick and out of it so there will inevitably be some parts that prbably dont make any sense 
> 
> im trying to handle the concept of dave being trans sensitively because i want to avoid the "i am a trans person i feel awful about my body i have glass bones and paper skin" stereotype, but i also use dave as an outlet for my own issues re: gender?? and i do deal with body dysphoria so. i dont know just . if you are easily triggered by reading about experiences of dysphoria and disassociation you might want to skip this one 
> 
> shoutout to tumblr usr ufosummoner for beta'ing the 2nd & 3rd parts of this like a champ  
> cw for dysphoria, mentions of menstruation, and mentions of sickness/other things that might trigger emetophobia

Your fingers hover over the keypad to rose's block and you hesitate a moment, a surge of uneasy nervousness and excitement settling in your stomach, before you punch in her password. It's muscle memory by now. The first few times, you'd had to message her on pesterchum for the 5 digit code, but after the second week of making your way up to her room in the dead of night to offer mutual comfort from bad dreams, it was pretty ingrained. The door opens with a soft pneumatic hiss. 

you know rose isn't here because you passed her earlier snuggling with kanaya in the library. it's safe to bet they'd probably stay like that for the next hour or so, trading sweet nothings and by sweet nothings you mean getting into a philosophical debate and attempting to one-up each other, giving you enough time to - 

well. 

you carefully step over a half-knitted scarf that's been splayed out on the floor and make your way past her bed and into the small bathroom that's connected to her block. you flick on the light and begin rifling through the cabinets until you find her make-up bag. You dig into it and find what looks to be the least used eyeliner and lipstick and stuff them into the pockets of your god tier pj's. you flit around a bit before snatching some shimmery gray eyeshadow for good measure and then make your exit, closing the bathroom door softly behind you. 

you head over to her walk-in closet and pick one of her skirts that sitting in the very back. she wouldn't notice it was gone. you hope. the skirt goes in your sylladex, as does one of her fancy lacy bras and some underwear with a small bow on the front that looks like it'd never been worn. (you swear this isn't a panty raid.) with that, you turn on your heel and walk out of there as fast as you can, making your way by transportalizer up to your own block. the hallways are blessedly empty.

you're not quite sure why you want to do this but the feeling has been nagging at you all day and you dont have an explanation as you lock yourself in your block and strip down, boxers off your butt and binder off your chest. you decaptchalogue rose's shit from your sylladex and pull the black panties on first. you flick the little bow in front and twist around to check out your own ass.

the bra proves to be more of a challenge. you've never used one of these things, its always been binders or sports bras you just pull over your head. you fumble with the clasps in the back and the bra slides down your stomach before you whisper a heated "fuck this" and pull it off. maybe if you.....hmm. you fasten the clasp the smallest it will go and then just pull it over your head like everything else you wear. roses's breasts are a lot larger than the shit you've been gifted with so the cups are way too roomy. the skirt goes on last. its a bit too big for you but you pin it together with a paper clip from the pile of shitty art supplies that have been collecting at the foot of your bed and that works out okay. you pointedly ignore the feeling of nausea beginning to build in your stomach. 

you dig the makeup out of the pockets of your discarded pants and wander over into the bathroom with small steps, not used to the sensation of something hugging your crotch so tightly. 

it feels so bizarre drawing on your face, and you have to hold your eye still with one hand while you apply the eyeliner with the other because you keep flinching. you smear the eyeshadow on with your finger. same with the lipstick. you take a step back to admire your handiwork and the person staring back at you in the mirror cocks their head and gives you a once-over. you look down at yourself and then back to the mirror and you're so weirded out but at the same time you're pretty hot? you'd guess. you look vaguely like rose. 

you angle yourself so your chin's pointing up , neck exposed, and you run your hands down your sides, feeling the flare of your hips. you hike rose's skirt up past your bellybutton and turn to look at yourself again in profile. it reminds you of all those terrible mom jean ads you watched once for ironic purposes. 

you start to feel a bit light-headed so you lean forward, resting on the mirror, head bent down to ogle your own cleavage. "this is so fucked up. why are you dressing up like a girl?" you whisper to yourself. you press your hands to your eyes. "no. you can dress however the hell you want to, you. you misogynistic fuckwad. clothes dont have gender. " 

you pause as what you just said finally registers.

"wait thats not misogynist. thats. internalized cissexism?" you ask your boobs. your head is so light you imagine it'll just float away at this point. every part of your body feels overly sensitive and you swear you can feel the air on your skin. you actually squirm with discomfort as you step back and unhook rose's bra, letting it fall to the floor. it stares up at you with two large and pupil-less cups. you shuck off the skirt and cover up the bra with it. the undies come off last and then you flick off the lights as fast as possible and step into the shower and stand there as the spray turns from cold to blisteringly hot. _what the fuck ? what the fuck? why did you just do that?_

when the shower runs cold again you finally get out, wrap yourself in a towel, and dont even bother to dry off before burrowing underneath the pile of blankets on your bed.

\--  
[a.n. i wrote the next part four months ago so the writing style is different and a lot more wordy oop]

You’ve taken up residence in the library, kicked your feet up on the desk, and are tipping back in one of the chairs at a precarious angle when Rose walks in. She spares you a glance before making a beeline over to Kanaya, who is sitting cocooned in one of the monstrous cushiony armchairs. The fact that Rose is capable of beelining anywhere is a small victory for her, as she is usually inebriated to the degree of walking like a sluggish and confused fruit fly.

Kanaya stops chewing on her nub of pencil and looks up from her spread of fashion croquis. She raises her eyebrows and leans forward as Rose bends down to whisper something in her ear, one hand on Kanaya’s shoulder and the other on the back of the armchair. Kanaya traces over the nibblemarks on the pencil with her finger, listening, and then frowns when Rose pauses. “No,” you lip-read her reply. She sets down the pencil and turns to face Rose, frowning. You decide it’s time to check out because it’s about to become Rose and Kanaya’s personal time and they're either up for an argument or a makeout session and either way you really aren’t eager on staying to catch any of the action.

You snatch Karkat’s musicgrub off the table and return the chair to its rightful resting position, four of its legs solidly on the ground. Your own two legs head for the nearest exit. Before you walk out the door you turn around to catch one last quick glimpse of Rose and Kanaya. They’re both staring at you; the kind of stare that makes your innards squirm in discomfort.

“Uh, ciao,” you manage before absconding the fuck out of there.

Rose knows. Of course she knows. How could you be so stupid as to think she’d stay whacked out enough not to figure out some of her shit was missing? And if Kanaya hadn’t taken it then, well, Rose was smart enough to figure out you’ve been having a rough time in the gender department and it would click together and honestly, honestly you were sure she didn’t care so much that her stuff was gone as much as the fact someone (you) took it in the first place. If she caught you alone now she sure as hell would want to wring your exact motives out in a long and painful psychoanalysis. 

You make your way back to your block, hands stuffed deep in your pockets, Alternian slam poetry drumming a slow beat through your earbuds. You try to focus on the rhythm but your mind keeps cycling back to memories you wish you could block out. The way you couldn’t think straight and how fucking huge your hips were and. The way you’d actually looked hot, for a girl. Shit. You have to stop thinking that.

You don’t realize you’re hovering until you go to punch in the code for your respiteblock and the keypad is at least two feet below where it’s supposed to be. It’s a nervous habit you hadn’t realized you had until Karkat once pointed it out in passing; after that you’d made serious attempts at cutting down on the floaty thing, but no matter how hard you try you don’t really have much control over it. You’d pretend you were doing it on purpose if it weren’t for the fact everyone knew it was just another version of your unconscious lip chewing and pacing. You make yourself drop down to rest your feet on the floor, absentmindedly punch the sequence 4-2-0-6-9 into the keypad and shuffle through to your room after the door opens with a buzzing that’s eerily similar to that of your old apartment’s door back in Texas.

It’s dark, but you don’t bother turning the lights on. The dim glow from Karkat’s musicgrub illuminates your face as you scroll through and hit a random playlist and hope it’s distracting enough.

The sheets on your bed are messed up and the duvet is somewhere else (unceremoniously sprawled on the couch in the corner from your last Movie Night With Karkat™). Regardless, the bare mattress is soft. You flop down onto it face-first, shades digging into the bridge of your nose, and breathe through your open mouth.

You stay there motionless until the pool of your saliva on the bed gets too gross. You wipe the spit on your sleeve and hover over to the couch, wrapping yourself first in your cape and then the duvet. It smells vaguely of Karkat. 

You sigh and wriggle your arms out from the blanket burrito and flick your ass communicator to life. The red LED at the base blinks on and stays steady. Karkat’s walkie talkie crab is online.

You tap the asscrack to open the connection. After a few moments the ass blurts out a garbled signal. It clears after a few seconds and Karkat’s scratchy voice comes in, tinny and even scratchier through the speakers.

“Yeah?”

You pause the musicgrub and scrabble to remove the buds from your ears.

“Hey,” you say. You’re not exactly sure how to continue. You want to tell Karkat what happened but you have no fucking idea where to even begin. It’s not like you’re intentionally not telling him, you’re just completely incapable of even beginning to articulate what’s going on. You really want him to come over so you can shoot the shit for a while and maybe kiss a little so you can forget about Rose and Things but you know that he’d sense something was wrong and Karkat, being the sensitive caring asshole he is, would ask you what was wrong and you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from saying something. Your stomach knots with worry and, fuck it, you open your mouth to ask Karkat to hang out so you can tell him in person when the ass cuts you off with a squawk.

“You there?”

“Shit. Uh. Yeah. Yeah. What’s up?” Your voice comes out disjointed and awkward.

Karkat pauses for a moment. You desperately hope he doesn't question your tone.

“Not much of anything is up, actually. Just laying around my room subjecting my thinkstem to the lurid intricacies of romance as per usual.” He sighs. “Remember that one romance novel I stole from Kanaya? The one where we flipped through and found that shitty flower metaphor. Simile. Whatever.” There’s a rustling of pages flipping in the background. “Nook parting open like a lily at night.”

You snort, nerves calming somewhat. “Shit, yeah, the one with the raunchy troll Nicholas Cage lookalike on the cover?”

“Troll Nicholas Cage with a bulge half the size of his fucking matesprit,” Karkat intones. “Anyway I’m about halfway through and let me fucking tell you it’s been a fluctuating railed amusement ride.”

“Please tell me you marked all the good passages.” You absently play with the fringe of your cape. “And by good, I mean the ones that are fucking mindblowingly horrific.”

“Of course. Prepare yourself for hours worth of shitty prose, Dave, because there is no way I’m suffering through this without having the satisfaction of knowing your auricular sponge clots are going to bleed to this as much as mine are. It’s like an exhaustive study of the inner workings of the most poetically described troll genitalia I’ve ever- “

“Excuse me while I go shove my mouth under Niagara Falls to flush out the bit of vomit that just came up.”

A pause on Karkat’s end. “Niagara? Isn’t that the one thing. The. Fuck.”

You snort at the realization of where this is going. Karkat fumbles. “What was it? That one medicinal remedy humans have for when…your bulge gets all floppy?"

“Oooh, Karkat,” you say. “Mind in the gutter, tut tut."

"Don't you tut me you asshole I know there's Niagara something or other, I've had the displeasure of hearing you mention it more than once."

"It's Viagra, not Niagara," you say. "Point still stands, looks like I'm not the only one who can't stop thinking about dick."

"I'm not thinking about di-" Karkat sputters, before he's cut off by a dull thunk. “Ow, fuck.”

You’re laughing. “What now?”

Karkat elicits a noise that’s a borderline growl. “I may have been sitting upside down on my pile and I may have just slid off the side and knocked the coffee table with my head."

“Mmm, suave,” you say. “Love it when you pull those moves, babe.”

“You’re so full of shit, Dave.”

“Nah.”

Karkat huffs. 

“Are you down to hang out tonight?” you ask. Your mind drifts back to more serious matters. You’re going to have to explain eventually. He only has a general idea of your situation and honestly you need someone to talk to about this and Karkat seems like the best choice and the moment because you're way to nervous to even consider asking Rose.

Karkat hums. “Yeah. You better ready your human rump for some classic Troll Will Smith.”

“Trust me, my rump is cocked and loaded.” You manage to get it out without cracking up and award yourself bonus points when Karkat coughs and makes a sound like a balloon deflating.

“Fuck this.”

“Love you too, Kat.”

“For the love of all things good and right in this world,” Karkat says before disconnecting.

You unstrap the ass communicator from your wrist and drop it onto the floor beside the couch before rolling onto your side and shoving your hands back under the blankets. You’ve started shivering a little and you pretend it's a sensitive reaction to the a/c rather than what you know is actually nerves. You pull out your phone and shove the earbuds back in your ears, and accidentally drift off to the vaguely discordant sounds of one of Karkat's Alternian jazz bands.

\--  
[a.n. the first part of this was written even longer ago, like bordering on a half a year. ridiculous.]

It's hot, it's so hot and you feel dizzy and weird. You kick off the covers and roll over to the cool side of the bed, stuffing your hand under your cheek. It’s dark except for a blinking red LED in the corner of the room. You squint at it in a haze until you mentally connect it to the bottom of a husktop monitor, the outline of which you can barely make out. Never mind whose husktop monitor happens to be sitting in your block at this moment. Karkat alway dumped his personal belongings here on purpose. You know it's on purpose because he uses it as an excuse to walk up to your place all the damn time. Bastard thinks he’s wily as shit, but you know his game. And he knows you know but keeps on doing it anyway. Wasn't he supposed to be over here already for your shitty troll Will Smith pseudo movie date?

It’s not until you run your hands over your face in amusement and maybe a little exasperation that you realize your forehead and upper lip are soaked with sweat. Or no, that’s just your clammy hands. Or a combination of both. Either way, it’s fucking disgusting. You throw off the blankets and the cold air hits you and your sweat-soaked god-tier jammies. 

You take a fistful of damp shirt and-- oof, yep, that is definitely sweat. Smells like a pair of post-workout Olympic-class balls left out to ferment or someshit. A vague sense of worry flares up in the back of your mind. The air temp here is normally kept at a reasonable seventy degrees, thanks to whatever filtration system this rock’s been set up with. (The air’s been recycled god knows how many times; at this point for all you know every breath you take had been a fart in a past life. The beautiful and pervasive eau de troll flatulence. But you digress.)

It’s not hot enough for you to be sweating like this -- even back in Texas it wasn’t this bad unless you’d been outside on a particularly muggy day, strifing with Bro or whatever. Maybe you’d had a nightmare that’d slipped from your mind in that groggy state between sleep and waking? Maybe you were sick? You wouldn’t be surprised. Your diet hasn’t exactly been the most nutrient-filled soccer-mom approved type of deal since being stuck on the meteor. In fact, even before then, it was basically shit. Bro can suck it because Doritos and microwaved fast food a healthy child do not make.

You shuffle over to the bathroom and swipe your hand over the vague area you expect the light switch to be until you finally hit it on the fourth try. It blinks on with a horrible clinking noise and you see yourself illuminated in the mirror.

Oh god, haha. You look like literal shit. You lean forward to get a better look at yourself and press a hand up to your face. The bags under your eyes are a lot more prominent than usual and your skin’s got an unhealthy greenish tinge to it. You shake your head as you strip out of your damp clothes and hop into the shower. 

It takes five minutes for you to begin feeling woozy and ten for you to feel cramping begin to curl up your abdomen and exactly ten minutes and two seconds for a weak "fuck this," to spit its way out of your mouth. it takes twenty minutes to get ready and you step out of the bathroom feeling uncomfortable as fuck and wearing the tightest binder you have despite the fact you know your chest will be doubly sore. at least you don't look like the face of death any more, though.

you open up pesterchum on your phone and shoot a message off to karkat (TG: you coming?) before relocating the mess of empty juice boxes, sweaty clothing, shitty comics and a couple stray batteries underneath your desk. you shove a chair in front of the offending pile and declare it good enough. 

a buzz emanates from your phone and you pull it out of your pocket, skimming over the dull gray text.

CG:HERE.

that was fast. you pick up your shades from where they were lying on your bed and slip them onto the bridge of your nose. when you open the door you're greeted with the sight of a much more neatly dressed karkat than normal. he's wearing a sweater that for once is not three sizes too large and his pants are a crisp maroon color as opposed to washed-out gray. his hair looks like it's actually been brushed and-- styled? 

"damn," you say, raising your eyebrows. "someone's lookin sharp."

Karkat manages to scowl for a whole of two seconds before a smirk twitches his lips upward and he blushes slightly. "Kanaya wouldn't let me leave until she declared me presentable." He lifts his arms and shrugs. "This was the bare minimum. If I'd stayed there any longer I'm pretty sure I'd be decked down in a fucking suit and tie."

"Mmm. I'd love to see that. Slicked back hair and the whole shabang," you say, reaching out to flick the hem of his sweater. He bats your hand away as his blush creeps up into his ears and he walks past you into your block. You allow the door to glide shut behind you as you follow him.

He sits down on the couch, folding his legs up underneath him, and chucks the troll will smith movie at you. the title is so long it runs from the front cover halfway down the back. fucking incredible. you pop open the casing and try not to wheeze too audibly from the strain on your lungs as you bend down to slot it into the dvd player. 

the couch lets out a soft deflating noise as you settle down on it next to karkat. something's digging into your butt, though, and you scoot around - "holy shit dave we're not even past the opening credits calm your twitchy ass" - before you pry your sketchbook out from behind the cushions. must've left it here on accident. you fling it down onto the floor and notice karkat following the movement.

"whats that?"

"sketchbook."

he bends over to pick it up but you lunge forward and cut him off, swiping it away before his hands can find purchase on the smooth black cover. the reaction is mostly out of habit. 

"must be pretty fucking risque if you're so territorial of it," says karkat, whistling softly. it's a habit he picked up from you and it makes you want to punch him every time he does it. 

"too risque for you to handle. im protecting your virgin eyes," you say, tapping the cover. 

"can i...?" he looks from the sketchbook to you. you sigh and hand it to him. 

"theres some private shit in there so if i say skip a page, you skip it, aight."

"yeah," he says, opening the cover and ignoring the movie as he flips through it. he pauses on one of the environment studies you sketched of LOHAC. "no offense but i thought you only drew that one visually abhorrent webcomic. the sweet brother one." 

"yeah. well....," you say, shrugging and feeling exceptionally self conscious. "this is just random shit. i dunno. its....." you trail off.

he frowns, hand brushing over the page. "you should be proud of these. seriously, dave." 

you shrug again, but it's nice to hear him say it even if karkat's basically obligated to as your best bro. boyfriend. brofriend. whatever.

you let him flip through the sketchbook and try to block out the pain pooling in your gut by focusing on the movie. troll will smith is currently arguing with troll kevin james and it turns into a scuffle that's actually pretty funny. you sink back into the couch, grab a pillow and hold it to your stomach. you close your eyes and hope the shades cover your face enough so that karkat won't notice. you still have to tell him about the gender thing but you're not sure you can because the steady throb crawling up your lower back is making it hard to think. how would you even begin to do that, anyway? 

"dave?" you hadn't noticed karkat had put the sketchbook down. you also hadn't noticed you'd started sort of rocking back and forth. fuck. "whats wrong?" he looks so worried and oooh shit. haha. no. you're not ready to explain this.

"nothing," you say, hugging the pillow tighter.

"did i do something? im sorry i can stop looking through your stuff, i didn't know it'd make you that uncomfortable-"

"no don't sweat it dude it's not that. you're fine." you lean over on the couch, curling your knees to your chest, and nudge the top of your head against karkat's thigh. you feel like shit. "I feel like shit." an involuntary shiver accompanies your words and you try not to whine out loud.

karkat sets your sketchbook aside and presses a hand gently against your forehead. 

"doesn't feel like you have a fever, at least."

"s'not a fever thing," you mumble into the cushion.

"then what is it?" he bends down, brushing hair out of your face. you open your mouth to say something but all that comes out is a hiss of air. it feels so similar to when this first happened when you were younger and you'd had to tell bro after he'd found your blood-stained boxers in the laundry. you'd had a hard time admitting it to yourself then and you're still having a hard time admitting it to yourself now because this shit isn't supposed to be happening to you. it's not happening to you. it's happening to someone else. this isn't really you, right now, you think. you try to say something again but you can't get anything out of your mouth and the feeling like you're watching yourself in third person, like you're in a fucking movie, is so strong and you watch your lips move to form words but you can't vocalize anything. you consider using your phone to type something out but you can't fucking move. 

"dave?" karkat gets off the couch and crouches in front of you. he's still got a hand on your face and he's started papping you gently. his brow is furrowed and he looks so concerned you want to die.

"i..." you force out of your throat. you can't quite get the rest out. everything is moving very slowly all of a sudden. normally you make it through this part of the month okay, you just hole yourself up in your room or you'll occasionally have good days when you can just ignore it completely and its fine. why. does this have to happen right now.

"please get rose." 

\--

You dry swallow the meds rose retrieved from her room before stuffing your face into the nape of her god tier hoodie and letting yourself cry like the fucking baby you are. rose had kicked out karkat into the hallway despite his protests to stay with you because you were obviously fucking sick. he left, though, when you mumbled something about needing rose specifically and i love you kat but please listen to her she knows what she's talking about.

“It’s that stupid stereotypical looking-in-the-mirror bullshit,” you say, sniffling. “That ‘I look in the mirror and see the wrong body staring back at me’ spiel. That’s not what’s up.”

Rose hums in acknowledgement and brings a hand up to stroke your hair. You shift slightly on her lap so you can wipe your running nose with the back of your hand. 

“I look in the mirror, and I’m fine. I see me. That’s me.” A shaky breath. “At least when I have my clothes on and stuff. Like, I'm fine then. I don't know. Fuck mirrors. I don't need a mirror to be reminded day in and day out of this complete bullshit." Your thoughts are getting all jumbled. 

"You're having a hard time vocalizing your predicament," says Rose.

"yeah no shit," you say, snorting, before you realize you just got snot all over her hoodie. "shit, sorry."

"it'll clean itself," she says. "there's no rush to explain everything, dave. you don't owe an explanation to anyone for why you feel the things you do. and it seems like you yourself don't know yet, so i would suggest figuring that out first. pressuring yourself into this before you know fully for yourself may not be in your best interests."

"yeah i guess," you say. you feel utterly defeated. "what is even my best interest. there's no way im going to ever be able to. transition or whatever, at least while we're stuck here on planet shitfest."

"we could experiment with alchemizing hormones," says rose, although even she knows that she's a bit of a stretch.

"yeah but even then like. what do i do about the stuff hormones doesnt even affect. i dont want to be stuck wearing a binder for a literal eternity." 

"it is rather unfortunate the only troll capable of surgical procedures was killed," she muses. 

"thats fucked up i wouldn't trust that guy with chopping off my tits," you say. "and what even happens if i die and respawn. would the su....surgery even hypothetically stick or would i be back to square one."

"i think you might be overthinking this," she says. "we'll do this one step at a time, alright?"

"sure. okay. yeah," you say, blinking the last few tears out of your sore eyes. "this sucks."

"it does."

you stay there, not wanting to move, clinging to rose with weak arms like she's a fucking lifeline. you are the giant fuckign manchild, it is you.

"I'm going to talk with Karkat, alright?" she says, patting you softly on the side. you scoot off her lap and hunch over on your mattress as she stands up. "Would you like me to explain your situation or would you prefer you do it yourself? I honestly wouldn't mind but I'm not sure I'll get everythign right."

"I'll do it. I should do it," you say, picking at your oversized tshirt rose had gently pulled over your head after you'd had a little fiasco right when she'd initially walked in (you couldnt breathe and thought you were going to die because your binder was too tight and you were having a panic attack). 

"alright," she says. she gives you a kiss on the forehead before she leaves.

\--

Karkat looks worried to death. “Does this have anything to do with his glaucoma?” 

Rose frowns slightly. “No. At least to my knowledge there’s been no documented connection. I don't see why it would; glaucoma don't normally correlate to issues with the reproductive system. The bleeding is normal, it's something that normally occurs every month or so-” karkat nods tensely; he'd picked up on that at one point or another already "-but the part with his mental health is due to something a bit different." 

“Rose,” says Karkat through gritted teeth, “Can you please just tell me what the fuck is going on? Look.” He clasps and unclasps his hands. “You’re the only other human here and it’s not like I can hike myself up by my shame globes, waltz down and alchemize an entire fucking encyclopedia on human health issues. Trust me, if I could--”

Rose cuts him off, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Karkat, I understand your worry, but I honestly think it’d be best if Dave told you himself. I promise you he’s not going to, as you put it, ‘fuck off and die’ anytime soon.”

“I just...” Karkat draws his arms up around himself and lets out an exasperated sigh. 

“Talk to him,” says Rose.

\--

rose @ dave sometime later:  
“You’ll be surprised to hear my cryptic words offered him no sense of comfort.”

well that was painful and im not going to bother proofreading because it's stupid o'clock in the morning


	6. 500 tonnes of pure hard granite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and now for something completely different (not rly this is just me indulging in the sick fic scene bc it comforts me......its ridiculous........avert thine eyes...........) 
> 
> if you want to know what i do when im lying around in bed in the form of a sneezing aching lump all day then Well folks here it is. i write shitty fic. what gives
> 
> karkats pov (wow switching it up. amazing)
> 
> cw for talk about health stuff that might be an issue if u deal with health phobias or health anxiety

dave lightly cups your face in his hands and you try to look him in the eyes because his shades are off for once but your eyelids droop down, burning and watery, and you struggle to hold his gaze. you feel your eyes begin to cross and dave doubles into two as he opens his mouth and you think it takes half a century for the words to tumble out in slow motion.

"karkat I need you to move your neck for me, okay? Just follow my hands. Tell me if it hurts."

"yeah sure whatever." you don’t mean to say it so slack-jawed, you don’t mean it at all, you mean thank you for sticking around and staying calm because it’s the only thing keeping you from low key freaking out. the word _meningitis_ echoes unwanted around your head. you imagine shutting it in a box inside your head and setting the box on fire and then taking the ashes of that box and locking them up tightly in a secure vault and then burying that vault under 500 tonnes of pure hard granite.

the pressure on the side of your head increases slightly and you bend with it, dave tilting your head first to one side, then the next.

"feel anything?"

"nothing more than your run of the mill shit," you slur out.

"okay, so far so good."

he gently presses your head backwards and you get a few inches before wincing. he stops.

"im guessing that hurt."

"yeah," its comes out way more breathy than you intended. 

you nodd your head back upright. dave slowly guides your head forwards, so light you can barely feel his fingers, and you actually groan as a low thrum of pain crawls down from your temples to your tailbone. dave starts to move his hands and you make a pathetic, "no nono," sound and he freezes.

"m gonna fuckign fall over if you fucking move your fucking hands," you say. fuck fuck fuck . you're sitting down ( in one of the worn out library chairs, dave kneeling down in front of you) and you still feel like your balance is completely gone. 

"okay," says dave. "im gonna put them to your shoulders and i'm not gonna let go of you, aight?" 

"aight," you repeat. the word sounds foreign in your mouth. it rolls off your tongue heavily and falls to the floor to the space between you and him. you imagine it splattering thick and gross on the rug. 

dave slides his hands down to your shoulders and you can tell he's trying to look comforting but there's a frown flitting around his eyebrows. he's so much more expressive without his shades. or he's always this expressive without his shades and you just can't tell. or? you're starting to confuse yourself.

 

cool im never finishing this


	7. smells like fresh laundry and some knockoff brand of soap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dave and karkat and insomnia and whatever becomes of it, inspired by an ask i got from an anon on good ol tumbles
> 
> nothign is capitalized and formatting isnt too great bc i Cant Be Bothered lmao sorry

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG]

CG: I CAN’T FUCKING SLEEP  
TG: that makes two of us  
cg: no i mean i literally can not sleep dave its been 35 hours since i got some fucking shut-eye  
cg: restless as it was  
tg: yeah still two of us   
cg: no…  
tg: yeah dude   
tg: the stark truth   
cg: you’re fucking with me  
tg: nah man   
tg: wouldn’t fuck around with this  
tg: the last thing insomnia is is a joke  
cg: oh  
cg: have you told anyone about it  
tg: yeah, i guess  
tg: rose knows   
tg: not like she’s much help though  
tg: most of the time she’s too out of it to do anything  
tg: besides when she’s not conked it’s still hard to talk about with her since all the advice is layered under jokes and sarcasm   
tg: layered like an enigmatic onion   
tg: and i just don’t got the heart to deal with that especially when im tried as fuck  
tg: *tired  
tg: and also tried i guess autocorrect knows me better than i do myself  
tg: but anyway  
tg: you told anyone   
cg: i dont need to tell anyone because everyone already knows  
cg: how did you not manage to pick up on that  
tg: well i mean terezi’s mentioned what happened during your session so I heard about your incredible feat of not sleeping for a whole month or whatever   
tg: but i didn’t realize it was still a thing for you   
cg: well apparently it is  
tg: apparently   
cg: yes  
tg: hm  
cg: hm what   
tg: hmm  
cg: stop doing that you obtuse fuck “hmm” WHAT  
tg: wanna talk about it  
cg: what  
cg: fuck no  
tg: you sure  
cg: do i need to fucking repeat myself  
tg: ok but if and when you need a soft and comforting red god tier hoodie covered hug  
cg: never, you ass  
cg: that’s presumptuous as fuck. im fine  
tg: you’re not  
cg: shut up im trying to do this neat trick called “lying to myself until i am so entrenched in the lie it becomes reality”  
tg: that ain’t healthy man  
cg: insomnia isn’t healthy either  
tg: point  
tg: but hey uh seriously  
tg: you ever tried listening to white noise while going to sleep  
tg: that shit blocks out everything  
tg: not that it helps in my case because it’s not the falling asleep part that’s the problem it’s what happens when i’m asleep  
tg: but just from experience when I was younger  
tg: i know it helped   
cg: okay  
cg: nightmares are kind of the issue for me too but i’ll try that   
cg: thanks   
tg: yep  
cg: um  
cg: i had issues with nightmares when i was younger too  
tg: oh shit really   
tg: was it because of the blood thing  
cg: that’s an incredibly insensitive way of putting it  
cg: but yeah. it was because of that.  
tg: that sucks man  
cg: it sucked yeah  
cg: most nights i’d just crawl up next to my lusus and that helped, sort of. he got overly concerned with me waking up screaming and did his crab clicking thing to calm my 5 sweep old ass down. he didn’t really know what was going on so the poor guy was probably more scared than i was  
cg: but yeah. cuddling with a large crab is pretty fucking weird to say the least, but i guess something about being physically close to someone else helps with nightmares.   
tg: yeah   
tg: i never told my bro about it so i mostly dealt with it by myself  
tg: well. rose actually helped me somewhat  
tg: although i was too much of a little shit to even admit i had a problem so i kind of dug my own pit of denial   
cg: huh.  
tg: what  
cg: nothing  
cg: what time is it?  
tg: it’s like 4 am or something  
cg: shit it’s later than i thought   
tg: time flies when you can’t fucking sleep and are staring listlessly into the void  
tg: but hey uh  
tg: just for future reference   
tg: im not entirely opposed to filling in for your lusus in the cuddling department  
cg: oh my fuckig god dave   
tg: shit dude im not gonna pap you or anything calm your troll titties  
tg: just seems like the logical thing to do for mutual benefit or whatever   
cg: as much as it pains me to say it that does sound nice  
tg: cool  
tg: so do you wanna like  
tg: come over  
tg: or should i haul my ass to your place  
cg: this is fucking embarrassing  
cg: and there’s no way im leaving my bed so it’s your move  
tg: good because i don’t think id be able to fall asleep in my own room this place freaks me out sometimes   
cg: okay. good  
cg: i’ll see you soon i guess   
tg: yeah  
tg: see ya

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased trolling carcinogeneticist [CG]

karkat arrives in his pajamas, toting a pillow. you meet him at the door. your shades are off for once, and it’s dark. The only light comes from the laptop charger in the corner of the room and the red lava lamp on your desk

“hey,” you say.

karkat wraps his arms around the pillow, hugging it to his chest. 

“hey.”

he looks so fucking tired.

you let him in and he makes a beeline for your bed. it’s a shitty thing made of 2 bare mattresses, but it serves its purpose. you’re glad karkat brought his own pillow because you only have one of your own. you have a shitton of blankets though.

karkat’s perched on the edge of your bed and you scoot past him to the far end, on your side with your back against the cold wall. 

“i can’t believe im doing this,” he mumbles to your room. you pat the space next to you and he turns around before very carefully shimmying under the blankets. he fluffs his pillow a bit before settling his arms over his stomach. he’s staring up at the ceiling.

"we’re doing it bro we’re making it hap-"

“i fuckign swear i will slap you if the rest of that sentence makes it out of your mouth.” Karkat interrupts.

“chill dude im just tryin to ease the awkward.” 

“great, now it feels awkward because you said it’s awkward . it was perfectly fine before you mentioned anything.”

you shrug, shifting the blankets. you’re very aware of the few inches of no mans land between you and karkat. you can feel his body heat under the blankets.  
"you’re still okay with this, right."

karkat sighs, a puff of air from his lips. “yeah.”

he shifts over so his shoulder’s barely brushing yours. he glances over at you and then back to the ceiling. back to you. you move a bit farther down so you can put your head on karkats chest, your knees bumping against his shins. fuckjng height differences.

"what are you doing, just laying on top of me?"

you sling an arm over karkat and nudge a hand up under his back.

"that’s the plan."

"you’re insufferable."

"want me to sing you a lullaby to shush you to sleep or are you gonna stop whining."

"lullaby?" karkat says. his voice is a lot softer and more throaty than normal. you think maybe this is his attempt at whispering. "like one of your inane raps set to the tune of ‘hush little grub’?"

"hey man don’t diss my lullabying skills. I’m decent."

"i have no wish to be the judge of that myself so im gonna trust you on this one. You’re the fuckign lullaby master, congratulations."

"and the crowd goes wild… lullaby master ain’t a small feat.but by god he’s done it, there he is, the one and only dave fucking strider, ‘oh excuse me sir I didn’t catch your middle name’ ‘it’s fucking. f-u-c-k-i-n-g.’ ‘thank you mr strider’ ‘no problem’ handling the press like a pro, all in a good days work- "

"shut up dave sleeping is even more of an impossibility when you’re mumbling bullshit into my nipples."

you snort at that but put a stopper on it and shuffle a little so more of your chest is on top of karkats and your heads actually up in the crook of his shoulder. karkat sighs again, more deeply this time, and worms one of his legs between yours and nudges you with his foot and if this guys tryin to play a game of footsie with you, you swear…

you both settle down eventually, working the twitches and residual jibes out of your systems and it’s actually… really nice. karkats hair at the base of his neck tickles your nose a bit as you breathe him in, trying not to be too overt. he smells like fresh laundry and the knockoff brand of soap he alchemized a year ago in a fit of disgust at the meteor supply that smelled sort of like a hospital. there’s also the sweet sort of earthy scent of what you guess is his natural body odor or whatever. when you spar with him he smells sort of gross and sweaty but this is way different and way better. you exhale carefully before breathing in again.

karkat’s own breathing has slowed even more than yours has. somewhere between the joking banter and shuffling around his hand had ended up on your back, his thumb tracing circles aimlessly around your shoulder blades. as his breathing slows, so does his hand, until it stills completely and you’re fairly sure he’s nodded off. hopefully he’s able to clock in at least a few hours of rest.

sleep doesn’t come to you easy. you’re scared of what will happen when it does, which is why you’re so good at keeping it at bay. the screams of the dead dying twice are enough to scare the shit out of you.


	8. let me explain the shituation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mmm. subversive and ooc

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG]  
CG: HEY.  
TG: hey  
cg: so uh. i just wanted to check you’re doing ok  
tg: yeah i told you dude im fine  
cg: you just left really suddenly and normally you stick around shooting shit and sweating all over my possessions like a spiny grubeater [a.n. echidna] in full lactation mode,which is fucking gross, but also the fact you’re not being your usual disgusting self is concerning and im concerned  
tg: man I’ll lactate whenever the fuck I want and wherever the fuck I so please  
tg: if it happens to be in my own room instead of on your shit I thought you’d be at least grateful  
cg: that mental imagery was so Fucking unnecessary  
tg: you started it  
cg: you made it worse  
cg: jesus we always go off on these tangents how do we ever talk about meaningful shit  
tg: worlds biggest mystery  
tg: although between you running your tongue like its a fucking marathon and me making some pretty choice extended metaphors  
tg: I wouldn’t be surprised if we somehow accidentally stumbled on some wisdom given the sheer amount of text we pull out our respective asses  
tg: like the monkey sitting at a keyboard smashing the keys blindly for all eternity will eventually type out the Gettysburg address word for word   
tg: that’s us, we’re the hollering phallus baboons   
tg: and actual decent fucking convo is like honest abe himself, in the flesh, hashin it out with the good people of the u s of a on the ghost of a war torn battleground   
cg: i understood like ten percent of that. and that’s pretty generous  
tg: ten percent luck twenty percent skill 15 percent concentrated power of will  
cg: seriously though im worried and you looked kind of sick  
cg: like you didn’t even explain you were just like “k bye” in the most worrying and simultaneously infuriating manner  
cg: flounced off with your swords and your toned ass leaving me to clean up all the shit from sparring  
tg: i will lactate on everything you love if you don’t stop interrogating me   
tg: and you don’t have to narrate out the entire thing like there’s some audience and we need a fucking exposition   
tg: i know. /I was there/   
cg: you just have been acting sort of evasive lately and i don’t know if there’s something you need to talk about but im here to listen if you need someone   
cg: i don’t want you to feel like there’s no one you can talk to. i know how isolating that is  
tg: ok jesus   
tg: if you really want to get off on my woes I’ll entertain you  
cg: what the fuxk that’s not what i said at all  
tg: ok  
tg: ok im sorry   
tg: this is weird for me to talk about  
cg: so there is something you want to talk about  
tg: holy fuxk ok   
tg: ding ding ding karkat isnt as horrible at reading social cues as previously expected   
tg: and now i don’t know how to deal with avoiding a topic i probably should bring up to my best bro at least eventually because it’s a huge fucking part of my life   
tg: and “eventually” seems to be right the fuck now  
cg: no no no no  
cg: no dave im not forcing you to say anything im just  
tg: it’s chill man i should talk about it anyway  
tg: and like  
tg: sorry for getting fired up about this   
tg: fuxk that’s the second time ive apologized this is reaching unacceptable levels of uncool  
tg: god the only other person ive talked to about this is rose  
tg: and you know how she is  
cg: no i actually dont  
tg: don’t lie man i know she’s cornered you at least twice before   
tg: and you were blushing so hard both times either she hit a nerve or you have the hots for my sis and uh  
cg: what the fuck? no, just no   
tg: like that shits just weird   
cg: that’s not it at all holy fuxk it was definitely the former of the two options  
cg: IF it were any at all  
tg: man like im just sayin  
tg: the fuck did she say to get you so blushu   
cg: none of your damn business  
tg: she’s my sis it damn well is my damn business  
cg: none. of. your. god. damn. beeswax.  
tg: hahaha oh my god  
tg: did you seriously just use that expression in the most genuine way possible  
cg: shut the fuck up  
cg: I don’t live up to your standards of ironic vernacular, my fucking bad  
tg: shit   
tg: shit man we got so off topic  
cg: again  
tg: always  
cg: forever and fucking ever this is how it’s dated to end  
cg: *fated  
tg: yeah  
tg: ok  
tg: so like  
tg: back to you worrying your ass off about me which is sweet of you  
cg: don’t mention it  
tg: i appreciate it and ill try my best to open up my little heart to you over this godforsaken app  
cg: ok  
tg: ok  
cg: ok  
tg: ok  
cg: just fuckjg shoot already  
tg: ok  
cg: /:B  
tg: that’s adorable   
cg: you’re adorable  
tg: i know we’re both adorable as fuck  
cg: if you don’t wanna talk right now it’s fine man. maybe we could try in person  
cg:?  
tg: oh haha hell no  
tg: in person would constitute me hyperventilating or something   
cg: ok then  
tg: oh my god now there’s too much buildup this shits just gonna fall flat  
tg: it’s not even a big deal  
cg: it kind of sounds like a big deal  
tg: i know oh my god  
tg: shits not actually that wild  
tg: prepare to be seriously underwhelmed   
cg: I’m strapped the fuck in   
tg: im gonna take a wild stab in the dark  
tg: guess youre not aware of my situation   
cg: ???   
cg: what situation   
tg: thought so  
tg: shit man how much you know about human anatomy  
tg: wrt to sex, as in, anatomical sex  
cg: enough  
tg: don’t beat around the bush dude just tell me  
cg: i said enough you know goddamn well what that means  
cg: what does this have to do with human anatomy? I swear to god if you’re fucking dying and making me play this guessing game you’re dead to me  
tg: dude that makes no sense   
tg: if im dying I’ll be dead ? like either way man  
cg: yeah shut up  
cg: just fucking spill the metaphorical beans you tightass  
tg: no you tell me first i need to know what you dont so i can fill u in  
tg: this is important shit man  
cg: oh my god   
cg: okay. fine. so like, your sex system is loosely based on this binary, which is a stupid idea by the way, and ladies have nooks and guys have these weird pseudo bulge things  
tg: dicks, karkat  
cg: yes. dicks, dave.  
tg: alrighty you did good. got the basics  
cg: that’s a relief, I’ll just go pat myself on the back in the most masturbatory manner possible knowing ive gotten dave striders glorious approval and fantasizing about other ways in which he can bestow this gift upon me  
tg: you do you bruh  
tg: but anyway   
tg: you know what im just gonna cut to the chase  
tg: on earth it was a big deal if you identified as a gender other than the one plastered onto you at birth   
tg: or at meteor in my case   
tg: and i was a big deal by that definition   
cg: ok?  
tg: yeah so like  
tg: Ive got human parts that usually people say belong to the human ladies   
tg: you know, boobs, pussy, the whole shabang  
cg: the fuck is a pussy  
tg: nook  
cg: that’s the most idiotic name for nook I’ve ever heard  
tg: same  
tg: so yeah like  
tg: that’s the simple part  
tg: it just gets more confusing from here on out if you wanna delve into some real gendery feels  
tg: but that’s it  
cg: that seems pretty benign actually I was expecting worse  
cg: I mean not that this isn’t a big thing for you don’t take this the wrong way and not that i wanted it to be worse holy shit im fucking this up  
tg: nah it’s chill   
tg: better reaction than most  
tg: i mean i could lay the sob story on you  
tg: but its probably best to save that shit for later   
tg: too much of a good thing, huh  
cg: uh, sure   
cg: i mean yeah whenever you want i’m up for listening to you and supporting the shit out of you   
cg: even though i know i can’t really help seeing as i’m a fucking alien and i’ve got alien genitals so you’ve gotta sort out whatever shit by yourself   
cg: you said you told rose she can help with that right  
tg: you’re handling this way better than she did haha  
tg: she basically landed this barrage of fucking questions on me like   
tg: strapped me down in the secret chamber of some CIA facility in the middle of nowhere and wrung me out   
cg: thats rough   
cg: and also really fucking invasive of her   
tg: yeah i know   
tg: it’s all good though   
tg: at least she’s not fucking transphobic or whatever  
cg: whatphobic   
tg: transphobic man like intolerant of trans people   
tg: oh right alien   
tg: transgender is the term for describing my uh  
tg: position   
cg: ok   
cg: that makes sense  
tg: yeah pretty simple shit actually   
cg: ok shit i gotta go ive got a thing with kanaya   
tg: aight   
cg: i uh   
cg: i appreciate you trusted me with that   
tg: yeah dude  
tg: see ya   
cg: strife at 2 right   
tg: yep   
cg: okay   
tg: bring your own water this time im tired of you backwashing into my pristine supply   
cg: i dont fucking backwash   
tg: the floaties in my water would like to argue otherwise   
cg: fuck you man   
tg: scuttle along you’ll be late for your frienddate or whatever the fuck   
cg: pulling out the crab connotations i see how it is   
cg: this is fucking war   
tg: holy shit dude just go   
cg: ok yeah yeah   
tg: byeee   
cg: bye 

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased pestering turntechgodhead [TG]


	9. corpse party, hah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just some prose ft dave or something

you’d never told rose about your collection of dead shit. well, you should clarify: your new collection, stuffed unceremoniously in a shoebox on your desk, not your old one, the one that used to float in alcohol solutions in jam jars on your shelf. last time she found out about your old collection she’d made a passing but profound remark about how it was your way of facing death, of literally packaging it up into manageable pieces. bite size, individually wrapped, for easier consumption or whatever. it had, quite frankly, scared the hell out of you.

and it still scares the hell out of you, how the things rose says so casually can sometimes fuck you up for days.

you don’t tell her that though. but you guess maybe she already knows. in any case, you haven’t brought up the topic with her since.

death has sort of faded into the background over the past few months. it’s a welcome hiatus. other than the bodies of cockroaches littering the uninhabited corners of the meteor, it has been blessedly, beautifully alive.

you’ve picked up an interest in the roaches. terezi calls them mites, but they look a hell of a lot bigger and make angrier clicking noises than any mite you’ve ever seen.  
you told terezi mites were like bed bugs n shit, pinching your fingers to show her “this fucking small”, nothing like the whopping 2-inch monstrosities that scuttled from behind the cereal cabinet when you opened it too fast.

they have a penchant for crawling from the shadows to die, basking in the dim artificial lighting in their final moments. what a way to go, jesus. It’s depressing as hell if you think about it for too long, so you don’t.

you sometimes brush their carcasses with the tips of your god tier shoes on your listless midnight strolls.

you stop, crouching down to watch a twitching one go still. it makes you slightly sick, the way they flip on their backs in a final show of mortality. you poke it until it careens back over into upright position, 6 legs making contact with the floor.

"hey little dude." the bug doesn’t move. You brush its dirty, speckled back with the tip of your finger. "Rigor mortis is a bitch, huh. I wonder what you died from. Starvation? Old age? Ol grandpa roach, thwarted by time. Sad shit, little dude." you brush the prone body into your hand and bring it up to your nose, peering at it through your shades. up close you get a better look at the patterning on its back, the black exoskeleton glittering a dark green and purple sheen. You blow on it softly, tilting your hand, and it rocks slightly in the breeze. you sigh, more a small huff of breath than anything, and captchalogue it before taking your leave. It’ll eventually end up stuffed in the shoebox, piled on top of all the other stiff little roach bodies. corpse party, hah.


	10. rose and dave! in the morning!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you: this isnt how ao3 is supposed to work. dont just dump all the shit u write in once place. categorize it for once  
> me: *frowns*

Rose finds you in the dining room, splitting apart froot loops into smaller and smaller pieces with the back end of a fork.

“You’re up early,” she says with a yawn as she stumbles over to the fridge. She opens it, leaning on the door, and just stares at the inside, not making a move to grab at the only ingestible thing in there, which is a carton containing the last dregs of orange juice she alchemized last week. You thought rose hated orange juice but you guess maybe you judged prematurely because apparently hi-c and orange juice aren’t the same thing. thanks for nothing, bro.

“actually I’m up late,” you say, trying not to inhale froot loop dust as you rest your cheek on the table and continue splitting the rainbow of crumbs into complete obliteration. “and for the love of god shut the fridge I’m feelin an arctic freeze comin up through my jammies . any colder and my balls will have flown so far north they practically would have been absorbed by my unfortunate-“

“spare me, dave,” she says as she grabs the orange juice and you both watch as she lets the fridge door inch forward until it finally shuts with a soft smack. “its fucking – “ she squints at the clock on the microwave. She must not have her contacts in yet. “its fucking 7 in the morning.” Rose runs a hand through her hair with a groan as she sits down across from you at the little breakfast table, slamming the carton of orange juice onto the table in front of her. “why am I even up this early. What gods have I displeased to curse me with such a fate.” She says this all in a measured monotone.

“beats me,” you say with a shrug. 

“im shaking my fist at the sky,” she says, without moving. She groans again and slumps forward to rest her head on her arms on the table. “wake me up when it’s a reasonable. Say, 3 pm.” 

“sure thing, chica.” You stick your tongue out and press it into the soft dusting of cereal you’ve created. Absolutely delicious. “3pm sounds great but you know what sounds even more reasonable. 6 pm. Or even 9 pm. Hell, sleep all day. That sounds fucking awesome.” You finish off the last of your fruit loop powder—you think about snorting it for a minute, for shock value, but rose isn’t awake enough to fully appreciate it so you save the thought for later. A minute passes and rose isn’t sleeping but she also hasn’t touched the oj.

“yo are u gonna drink this,” you say, tapping the carton. 

She grunts. 

“okay im taking that as a no,” so you take it and just chug it straight out of the carton. It tastes fuckign gross, more cardboard than orange, but you dont really know what else you expected. Its been sitting open in a stinking and dirty fridge. you smack your lips and burp after. “that was good shit, rose.” 

“im no longer surprised at the fact you actually enjoy eating your Fruit Loops seeing as your taste buds have a mind of their own and are talking shit to you.”

“hey how did you capitalize that when you were talking.”

“too meta?”

“way too meta.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> me: *frowns MORE*

necessary exposition: it’s karksts birthday. rose, kanaya, terezi, karkat, and dave are Gathered at the common room table and are eating cake . currently convo has devolved to making jokes at the expense of rose and kanayas love life.

“she’s so far up in her grill she’s practically under her hood,” says dave, not looking up from his plate and immediately shoving a forkful of cake into his mouth.

“OOOOHOHOHO,” terezi yodels and she slams the table. “full automotive service we have here!! would you like some lube with that oil change?”

Now it’s daves turn to holler as he shoves back his chair and strides to the exit with his hands up, shaking his head the whole time, and he kicks open the door and just fucking walks out of the common area. karkat watches him leave with a pained expression and looks to kanaya, who is blushing horribly, and rolls his eyes.

terezi’s still cackling when dave comes back after maybe 3 seconds with a “just kidding, but seriously holy fuck,” as he pulls up his chair again.

then rose says “[insert witty and even more disgusting sex/car pun here]” and kanaya tries not to look flustered but her whole face is green and she’s smiling really hard and everyone’s just like oo snap!!

later dave goes to give karkat his present and karkat opens the door and daves like, “hey , i wanted to give you your present in person and- dude, are you okay?”

karkat’s eyes are bloodshot and watery and he wipes at them with the back of his sleeve and just shrugs.

“im sorry man i didnt … if you’re upset… i could just leave, if you need your privacy”

“no, no it’s fine.” karkat sniffs and smiles. “so what sweet fucking loot did you want to shower on me.”

“Oh, well,” says dave. “hold on a sec it’s in my sylladex.” he decaptchalogs like 5 things and they fall to the floor in a heap and he’s like “shit”. scoops them up and recaptchalogs 4 of the odds and ends of stray pairs of headphones and a pack of sharpies and some cool ranch Doritos and a stained tshirt http://s3-ak.buzzfeed.com/static/enhanced/webdr01/2013/2/1/11/enhanced-buzz-8701-1359735061-5.jpg (“gotta do my fucking laundry i keep forgetting”), and he picks up a large envelope last and hands it to karkat. “i drew some shit for you, you were always talking about not having illustrations for your . fanfiction or whatever. so.”

karkat opens the envelope and inside are a bunch of pretty damn accurate drawings and dave actually put effort into them and karkats kind of overwhelmed to the point of speechlessness “dave i…” and just looks through them and dave shoves his hands in his pockets looking sheepish “mind you some of them are pretty raunchy but you were the one who wrote the content so. im but a humble artist following prompts.”

“you’re a humble ffucking enabler,” karkat breaks his silence. “these are like… really incredible.” he keeps flipping through them and daves like “I mean that’s not really much so I also thought , since you’re into coding and all that shit, you know, it’d be cool to collab on maybe making some kind of multimedia digitalized fucking comic series or something ((dave stares in2 camera like it’s the office)). I mean if you want to.” looks to karkat to gauge his reaction and karkats just staring at him, envelope loose in his grip, not giving any kind of social cues and dave starts to panic a little “just figured since we’re both kind of into making stuff it’d be cool to see what’d happen if we worked together on something, like…”

karkat bites his lip and is trying really hard not to start crying again but it’s not working and he’s like “yeah ,” in a really strained, high pitched voice and dave doesn’t really know what to do like he knows karkat is prone to crying on days that hold emotional significance to him - he cried on perigrees eve too even though he and kanaya were really the only ones around to celebrate (and dave suspects maybe that’s part of why he was crying then) - but dave isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do now?

“can i, um.” dave holds his arms out weakly and karkat walks forward into dave and headbutts him softly in the chin with one of his horns as he sticks his face into the bunched up fabric of daves hoodie and tries breathing evenly while making these pathetic whining noises that make daves stomach twist and urge his hands around karkat.

“you wanna talk about it man?”

karkat nods but doesn’t say anything else and if anything he just starts crying harder.

“hey. hey, hey.” dave mumbles, puts a hand in karkats hair and strokes it and pulls karkat closer so he can wrap his cape around him and he just waits for karkat to cry it out, trying to find comforting words to say and coming up with a blank because he doesn’t even really know what specifically caused this in the first place.  
a minute or so later of quiet crying later karkat seems to have calmed down enough and the first thing he says is “ this is fucking ridiculous i cried so hard my cartilage nub is plugged I can’t even breathe,” and it comes out really nasal.

“breathe through your mouth, buddy,” says dave, slowly prying himself from karkat. his face is a blotchy mess. “we should get you cleaned up and then we can talk, aight?”  
they go 2 the bathroom, dave wipes off karkats face with a washcloth and karkat talks abt how it was so nice to see terezi back on her feet and trading snark just like she used to and that she wasn’t normally in the common room and that gamzee wasn’t there and that he’s never going to be, karkat guesses, because it was his birthday and the fucker still didn’t make an appearance and it’s painful because karkat obviously had pretty pale feelings for him and to see it fail so horribly , and he goes on a tangent about how bad he is at keeping relationships etc etc daves like bro no your hearts in the right place but that one instance with gamzee isn’t your fault , and idk idfk something else


	12. shnitpost (snail shitpost)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im just going 2 compile one large fic shitpost. here. here. i dont even care about separate chapters @ this point .

(tfw dave says goodbye to karkat before he goes 2 get sucked into juju hell by the strange little green man)

he peppers your face with tears and kisses and if it were anyone but karkat you’d tell them to shove off but

he’s fucking shaking against you so you hold him and rock him gently and you’re so fucking scared “im so fuckinf scared” and karkat just nods into the nape of your hoodie and cries harder, quiet sobs gaining volume until he’s making this horrible guttural wail and you wish none of this would have happened because you’ve never seen karkat like this before, ever

and his crying is setting you off and you both turn into crying messes on the floor of your block and it makes you feel … you’re not sure how it makes you feel. there’s not much to feel besides the cold dread making it’s way from your fingertips up through your arms and your whole body, making it hard to move.

“i don’t want you to go,” he says, finally, quietly, lacking in the firey energy his voice usually carries. it’s choked and raw now, breath warm and gentle against your neck as he breathes evenly, a conscious effort to calm himself down. You run your hands up and down his back, trying to gather the strength to say what you need to. jumping into battle in a heroic last-ditch effort only works for you if you don’t plan it out. it’s spontaneous. this isn’t spontaneous, it’s cold and calculated and it wracks your brain with nerves. the fight isn’t as appealing as flight now.

“i dont want to go i dont want to go i ahve to go. i have to, i dont want to” it makes your eyes blur up again with tears. you’re really scared of. of dying. dying heroically because that means you’re not coming back. and you’ll meet karkat in the dream bubbles, sure , eventually, loads of different karkats, but that’s the thing, it’s not ever ever going to be the same as it is now and that makes another round of hot tears spill out.

you didn’t want to say this until right when you were leaving but the words tumble out anyway as you mash your face against karkats cheek and you both fall over , splayed out on the floor of your room and karkats gripping you so tightly but it offers little comfort and “I love you,” just happens and it happens fast and raw and its so weighted your voice cracks from the strain.

“i love you too,” karkat says, hands in your hair and on your neck and your cheeks and everywhere and his touch is something that’s keeping you grounded and you’re ever thankful and , “i love you so fuckinh much oh my god I love you,” once he starts it’s like karkat can’t stop and you start crying again as you wrap yourself as close to karkat as you can, and wrap your cape around both of you, swaddle it over your heads so you’re in the comfortable dark, swapping breath and spit and tears.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
(this is karkats pov; everything else is daves pov)

“just brush my cheek gently with the back of your hand”

you replay it over and over in your mind. you don’t know what you had expected; dave wasn’t really about touching people casually. But you also had thought you and he were at least past the awkward part seeing as you were pretty much bros for life at this point. If anything getting closer to dave as a friend had made everything even more awkward rather than tone it down.

you sigh and turn in ur bed, staring at the wall, finding patterns that aren’t there in the dim light seeping from your recuperacot. “touch me”. God, you can’t believe how embarrassing you are. Why did you even say that, you should have run it through your mental filter first , but oh wait, that things practically nonexistent.

you bring your own hand up to your cheek and stroke it once, lightly. you can’t believe how pathetic you are you’re basically papping yourself, what even is this, pale masturbation???

you do it again and this time imagine it’s daves hand. his knuckles are cracked and rougher than yours so it wouldn’t feel as pleasant but god it would still feel so good. he’d maybe brush it once, like you asked, and then turn his palm over and trace your jawline with two fingers, nonchalantly. the pads of his fingertips are smoother than his dry skin - which he really needs to take care of you should get him some kind of lotion, and also something for the spaces right above his nails which are usually peeling or scabbing - holy fuck you’re so pale for him rn it’s not even funny.

you brush your thumb over your bottom lip and your breath hitches. dave would step closer as he moved his thumb from your mouth to settle in front of your ear - you have to twist your arm around yourself to the opposite side to get the angle right - his hand sitting at the nape of your neck, fingers just touching the base of your hairline. and he’d step closer again and you close your eyes as his hand starts working it’s way thru ur hair, measured at first, softly, but then with more force as his lips come to rest on yours and you turn to fucking make out with your pillow and you don’t care because daves hands are migrating down to your shoulders and squeezing them gently as he opens his mouth slightly . There’s an incredibly soft layering of really small hairs on daves upper lip and his mouth is so warm and . your bloodpusher is beating so hard you can feel its pulse rushing in your ears as you press your face into your pillow, your hands tugging at your own hair, and any thoughts of “this isn’t pale you obtuse fuck” are drowned out by a wave of dave, dave, oh my god, dave, you’re so fucking gorgeous, dave kiss me harder dave i want you so much babe here come here .

you pull back to catch your breath and shiver a bit as you wipe your own cold spit off the pillow and flip it over so you don’t have to sleep in the evidence of your own desperation. you try to settle back down but you can’t because you’re sort of turned on and very awake.

you reach over the edge of your bed and grab your husktop and play mindless games until you assume it’s time for breakfast .

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“kid married,” says karkat. “you know, when you’re younger and married your friends with gave each other sticks and paper as shitty substitute rings and threw rocks at each other in place of flowers or whatever like the little shits you were.” he takes his eyes off the book he’s been reading and puts it down to rest on your ass, which he’d been using as his personal plush desk. 

you’re both on the couch, karkat sitting there sinking into the cushions and you yourself sprawled out on top of him, with your hips in his lap- crotch touching , oh yeah -  
there’s paper drifting down ur thighs and if you wiggle around just right the highlighter he pretends to use to give the aura of a Studios Professional will start its descent into your asscrack. Dante’s inferno right there ft the 7 layers of your ass.

“no man ive honestly never heard of that,” you say, scratching away haphazardly at a comic of rose and kanaya’s double date with sweet bro and jeff. you admit it’s one of your shittier ones, but right now the drama is escalating through the fucking roof because geromy , who was in polyamorous genital tango games with bro and jeff came across them leaving him out and right now they were wrapped up in a shitstorm of harsh words and anime tears. Fuckig real as hell.

“seriously? It’s like a hallmark of childhood,” karkat says. “what kind of shitty friendless life did you lead?”

“ouch, man,” you say. “I mean I guess it never occurred to me to marry my friends. the ceremonial bullshit would be complicated as hell.”

“you’ve failed one of the most important steps of child development, everything makes sense now. that’s just sad.”

“dude we can get fake married if you want to oh my god,” you say, rolling over and sitting up, dragging you ass off karkats lap and onto the couch next to him.

a blush starts to creep up into karkats cheeks. “where did you get that from I never said anything like that.”

“aw babe but I thought we’d be getting hitched,” you say, putting your head on his shoulder and staring up at him with what you hope is a simultaneously pitiful and seductive

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“I always thought this would go down in more of a hot mess of ‘I’ll show me yours if you show me mine’ kind of way,” karkat says, gingerly poking his ribs through his shirt as you slide the bags you’d been carrying, yours and karkats respectively, off your shoulders onto the floor by the growing pile of laundry. “Cliché as fuck heat of the moment xenophilic lust, my hand down your pants. Or your hand down my pants.” 

“me, personally, I never thought it’d go down like that. but that’s just my own little onion,” you say as you tip the lid of the toilet down and it slams a lot louder than you meant it to. Karkat sits on it with a little “oof”. He’s hugging his arm to his chest like that’s the thing that you’d whacked with your sword instead of the upper section of his torso. You wanted to practice with the full weight of the sword and didn’t want to alchemize a shitty one, just for integrity, so you’d wrapped your half-caledscratch in some combo of duct tape and cloth and you guess it had slipped and the sharp end had snuck out and clipped karkat in the ribs and you shouldn’t even have been aiming there but he had crouched down to get at you from underneath , which you should have predicted,fuck, because that’s his most advantageous fighting style considering his height but instead you’re standing here guilty for not taking more safety precautions. Your stomach has been making awful ups and downs at the thought of karkat not being god tier yet and he could still legit die. You’ve felt nauseous for the past five minutes of walking down from the upper levels of the meteor where u normally strife to ur bathroom, which is ridiculous, because if anyone should be nauseous it’s karkat. You’re displaying symtpoms of shock rather than the actual trauma victim, holy shit.

You run through this train of thought maybe twice while shuffling around one of the cupboards for the first aid kit and a roll of bandages. You’re sure it’s not that bad, considering karkat’s not screaming or passed out and there’s not . there’s actually not that much blood on his shirt, thank god.

(i wish i had the stamina to finish this bc karkat and dave strifing is one of my fav things. and so is dave n karkat worrying over each other. lord)

++++++++++++++++++++ >:D ++++++++++++

( i dont even know what this is fucking Hell)

You’re sitting on your bed with karkat snuggled up next 2 u, your godtier cape wrapped around him like a cocoon, laptop overheating and burning the tops of ur thighs but u don’t wanna move it bc this position is fucking Prime. karkats hogging the package of jellybeans and staring at the screen, which is playing clash of the titans (1981), a happy accident alchemized thanks to yours truly. You had to show karkat because the special effects in this thing are fucking incredible (sarcasm). U see karkat pick up a butter popcorn jellybean and ur like “dude don’t eat that one those taste like shit” “I’ll fuckign decide for musefl thank yuou” he eats and it and pulls a face but keeps on chewing . “why the fuck would u make it ttaste like popcorn . when u could just eat real popcorn. We’re watching a fucking movie eating fake popcorn” 

“you’re eating fake popcorn” you correct him, “ I warned u bro.” 

you fall asleep at some point. Idk . u dream abt karkat in a huge bath with flower petals and it’s the most moe thing you’ve ever seen and he’s so beautiful , washing out his hair. He looks at peace for once in his life. he finishes bathing and gets out of the tub, facing away from you, and you get an eyeful of his ass. Which is really quite nice. You’re fuckign blushing and he can’t even see you. If he did happen to turn around you think you’d just. Fucking combust or something. 

he’s surrounded by servants who gently lather oil on his skin and wow haha you . wish you were one of those servants because god karkat looks so.. 

karkat is helped into a white tunic and its fastened and you finaly remember how to move your feet nad you walk out from behind the marble pillar u were standing behind. “you look fucking pbeautiful,” you say, steppgn forward. Karkat has abslotul y no reaction. And he walks right past you. His eyes are dead how did you not realize it how  
kakrat is . sacririced or something blah blah more description here IM SUCH A LAZY ASS AND I HATE WRITING PAIN

you wake up with your face shoved into your pillow which is damp from ur tears and snot that leaked out while u dream-cried. The laptop is off and its slipped form yuour lap. 

And karkat isn’t there. You dry your face iwth ur hand and get up. “karkat?” you feel shaky as hell. You need to see if he’s okay you know it was just a dream but you n. you need.  
Maybe he went back to his own block. You run there and knock on the door, 4, 5, 6, times, and then whisper karkat and then yell KARKAT and the fucker doesn’t answer still so he’s most likely not there. Unless he’s sleeping, he might have just gone back to sleep and is conked thefuck out. Maybe you’ll try the kitchen. You spirnt and its getting hard to breathe and you have to hold urself at the kitchen doorframe while u look in , feeling like ur gonnna pass out.and there at the kitchen table you see karkat and he’s eating some fucking . cereal . he’s eatig y our cereal and you don’t care 

“jesus chrsti,” you whisper and seeing karkat irl brigns back the flood of fear from the dream and you stumble over and stand there weakly for a sec while karkt looks at you, kind of shocked, and looks like he’s trying to find wrods and you just lean into him . and get into his lap and wrap your arms around him as tight as you can and you try to muffle your crying into his neck but you know you’re being loud and gross anyway.

“bad dream?”

You nod “the absolute fuckign worst”


	13. sisyphus 2.o

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i need to get back into writing karkat properly, i cant do it and im suffering 
> 
>  
> 
> sorry

rose manages to alchemize some kind of injectable androgen like a month after daves 16th (???) birthday .

interrupts dave and karkats movie night™ to tell dave; is really vague about it at first.

“dave, I need to speak to you. privately.” And daves heart drops into his stomach at those words because that cannot mean anything good.   
“what’s up.”  
they get to rose’s lab she’s got goin that was originally in the common room but was then moved to a more quiet location so ppl would quit buggin her all the time.

and rose explains what it is n she’s like “well it’s not exactly black market grade but it’ll have to do the trick . a belated birthday gift.” 

“how the fuck.”

she hands the suspension to dave and explains the process of. however the fuck she did it lmao i have no idea, make something up. it’s a long ass explanation and dave zones out in the middle of it. when rose is finished he mumbles something like “don’t do drugs, kids,” and tries to play off the anxiety wafting off him. rose ends up being the one to lean in and hug him really briefly. dave hugs her back awkwardly.

“i’ll, uh, try it out? I swear to god if you poison me, my ghost self will haunt your dreams. have to deal with my eternal gabbing and you’ll never get a good nights sleep as long as you live.”

“sadly I’ll never experience the delight of listening to you spout an eternal loop of Bush Did 9/11 and other less amusing conspiracy theories while im asleep, because you’ll respawn and I’ll have the displeasure of listening to a watered down, filtered, and grossly unfunny version of the same self-masturbatory monologue while I’m wide awake. god tiers, right? almost wish u hadn’t died on ur quest bed just so I could hear what your ghost would’ve come up with.” she digs around a drawer and hands him a package of hypodermic needles. dave takes them and bounces the pack lightly in his hand.

“conspiracy theories? it’s the goddamn truth, lalonde, though you wouldn’t be able to SEE it if it were right in front of you.”

“ha, ha.” she says it so flatly dave winces.

“yeah, I….. ” Dave turns to leave. “listen, uh, rose.”

“Mm.”

“thanks”

“tje pleasure is all yours. ”   
she’s silent for a few seconds before calling out a “happy birthday, dave.”

dave leaves. he stores the needles & suspension in his sylladex.

he goes back to his room, where he left karkat, who’s been waiting there nervously thumbing thru the movie extras menu. kks worried out of his goddamn mind . “what was that all about?”

“birthday present.”

“one hell of a belated bday gift.”

dave doesn’t say anything and remains uncharacteristically silent, flopping down on the couch next to karkat.

“what’d she get you?” karkat prompts.

“she alchemized some, uh. pretty serious shit.”

karkat puts the remote down and turns to look at dave, his brow furrowed, looking more confused but still worried. he tries to lighten the mood. “you can’t be this serious about aj??”

dave guffaws in surprise and nervousness and ends up laughing so hard his sides hurt, pats karkat on the shoulder and clears his throat, raises a hand like he’s proposing a toast, but every time he tries to get a word in he ends up giggling to himself. karkat is definitely more confused than worried at this point.

“dave, what the fuck.”

dave lets go and presses his face into his hands and lets out a vocal sigh.

karkat scoots over and drapes an arm around daves shoulders. Nudges him slightly. “what’d she do, dave?”

“hormones.”

“huh?”

“hormones. she alchemized hormones. or, stuff that acts like hormones, fuck me if I know what the hell she even did. just gave me this dainty little glass bottle of shit like, here, dave, you must want this. i obviously worked really hard to make this for you. hours and hours of intense labor. like Sisyphus 2.0, laboring over this same unfruitful bullshit until I best the original Sisyphus and manage to get the rock over the top of the hill only to watch it barrel down the other side, making a beeline for your fleshy little mortal body at the bottom of the hill. i except you to blindly trust me that it’s not going to immediately fuck you up.”

dave decaptchalogues the suspension from his sylladex and it falls gracelessly to the blanket-covered floor with a little thump. He picks it up and hands it to karkat, who takes it between two fingers and squints at it.

“hormones…” he says. “so this is testosterone? for your, uh. body thing.” which dave has thankfully already talked 2 karkat about. Explained everything over the course of multiple tangential conversations. Hes surprised karkat remembers that specific of a name.

“my thing that is a body, yes. the body thing.”

“shut up, dave, im trying.” he hands the bottle back to dave but instead of taking it dave puts it straight back into his sylladex.

“its not exactly testosterone, but it’ll do the same shit t would do. In theory, at least.”

“if it doesn’t work exactly like its meant to in theory, rose is fuckign paying for it.” defensive boyfriend, yowza.

“man don’t be like that. she’s just tryin to help. show that she cares through the most roundabout and theatrical gestures possible but, eh. that’s rose for ya.”

dave slouches over n just kind of collapses on karkat bc his brain is processing thru everything at 500 mph. and he cant fucking decide if he even wants to actually use rose’s gift or not. there are so, so many things that could potentially go wrong. he’s read up on stuff before, in the middle of hot texas nights when he couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to sleep, and scrolled through the list of google search results that was always too skimpy for comfort.

Karkat leans back on the couch, and dave goes with him. His face is stuffed into karkats shoulder. theres a sudden warmth on daves back and he realizes karkat just drew him into a hug.

“ive been tellinf myself for so long that it’d never happen, been getting used to the idea of never going on t or whatever and all that shit and now that its here, i. i don’t know if I want it. i mean, i want the shit it changes about you, obviously. And I guess I want that because then I’ll actually be able to enjoy the things about myself im currently just …coping with. and i just .even with all that. im scared. I’m scared of changing. Im scared of what it might do to me. Even if I expect it. what if im not ready. What if I back out, what if I change my mind, what if, what if, fucking a thousand what ifs, and im so sorry but your shoulder is going to have some patented strider tears on it if you don’t stop me right now.”

Karkat moves a hand to daves cheek and does the shooshing thing. dave is really, Really fond of the shooshing thing. “dave, no one’s forcing you to do anything. There’s no rush. We have another year, at least. This is a really big thing for you, given rose knows what what the fuck she’s doing.”

dave lets out a little involuntary “ha.”

the shoosh/papping turns to kissing for all of 5 seconds before karkat realizes dave is definitely not into it atm. He drops his hands and mumbles an apology while dave pulls away.

“i… i think i need some time alone.”

“yeah. Y eah, okay.”

karkat gets up pats him on the shoulder, makes his exit. “text me, alright.”

“Yeah.”


	14. this ones short

you use ur phone as a flashlight and stumble out of bed to where karkats huddled in the corner of the room under a “pathetic excuse for a pile” (his own words), a few pillows on top of him. his breathing is erratic and even from here you can see he’s shaking. you drop down onto your knees, setting the phone face up beside you. it weakly illuminates karkats back. you aren’t sure whether you should try to wake him or not. you know how awful nightmares are, but not waking up fully from them is even worse .

karkat stills–relaxes, even–and you think maybe the dream has passed. you allow urself the liberty of sitting back on your haunches and breathing a sigh of relief–right before he stiffens under the pile and starts … whimpering? oh no no no no karkat no

karkat, still asleep, lashes out and sends a pillow flying into the darkness under your bed. (your…. singular or plural, you’re not quite sure)

you decide to hell with it, you’ll try your damned best to wake him up proper.

you nudge him gently on the shoulder and suddenly he twists around and his eyes are flying open and he stares straight at you, through you, doesn’t see you and it’s frankly unnerving. he growls and you barely move away fast enough to escape the onslaught of claws and teeth and holy fuck okay bad idea definitely a bad idea

“karkat , hey, it’s me. it’s dave. it’s alright.” you out your hands in front of you, palms upward, in what you hope is a nonconfrontational gesture.

karkat slowly becomes aware of his surroundings, blinks blearily.   
he collapses back onto the pile. you go up to him and sit beside him.

“you okay man?”

karkat shakes his head and clears his throat. “did i hurt you again”

“nah, im fine. but we’re talkin abt you. only if you wanna talk about it tho.”

karkat makes a noncommittal noise and scoots over so his side is up against urs, and he leans his head on your shoulder. and after a few seconds he makes this kind of wet noise and u realize he’s crying.

it’s the fifth time this week, and it’s only tuesday. (again? no problem! but evidently there is a problem and karkat isn’t coping well)


End file.
